Are You a Terrible Leader?

November 13, 2013

Daily Read – Are You a Terrible Leader?

Leadership is not just telling people what to do; it is about the investment we make in others and the responsibilities we accept for being the voice and direction that others count on. Not everyone makes a good leader – either by nature or habit and recognizing your lack of leadership ability is a vital skill to help you achieve greatness. Here are signs that you are a bad leader, exhibiting traits that you don’t want to be following:

You make empty promises. You need to be aware of what effect this has on your staff. If you commit to something but don’t follow through it can send the wrong message to your employees and those who you are pushing to deliver the best results.

You fail to follow up. Following up is an important part of leadership as it is our ability to hold ourselves accountable. When you make a promise, not only is your word on the line, but so is your integrity, so follow up with a “yes it’s completed” or “no, but here is when I commit to it being completed.”

You’re fearful of confrontation. While business leaders want to drive results, they can be at a loss when they don’t attain them through those who work for them. They often go around those tough conversations by trying to empower others to have them so that they don’t have to.

You don’t hold yourself accountable. A simple way to keep yourself accountable is to eliminate the word “sorry” from your vocabulary. When acknowledging your broken agreement, acknowledge in a way that suggests that you realize you broke your word and will commit to a change in action as you move forward.

If you are reading this and realize, yes you are a terrible leader- its okay, just acknowledge (the first step to improvement), learn to be better and commit to becoming a leader you would be proud to follow.